A mobile network operator may allow users of mobile devices to access voice and data services using the mobile devices. A user of a mobile device may sign up for a data plan that limits the user to a certain data limit (e.g., 5 GB per month) and charges the user an overage fee (e.g., $0.01 per MB over the 5 GB limit) for data used in excess of the data limit. To allow the user to avoid the overage fee or to encourage the user to switch to a more expensive data plan with a larger data limit, the mobile network operator may provide the user with alerts when the user has consumed a certain percentage (e.g., 50%, 90%, 95%, etc.) of his/her data limit.
The alerts may be provided by an online charging system (OCS) that is updated frequently. A different offline charging system (OFCS), which is updated less frequently, may be used to generate the user's mobile network bills. This scheme may lead to inconsistencies between the alerting system at the OCS and the billing system at the OFCS, resulting in user dissatisfaction, for example, if a user is billed for an overage (using data stored at the OFCS) but not notified (using data stored at the OCS) that he/she is near his/her data limit. As the foregoing illustrates, a new approach for maintaining mobile network data use records may be desirable.